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Hi
It seems to me that a star party at such a northern latitude as GSSP right around summer solstice would not have very long nights. Those who have been to the latest editions of Texas Star Party are well familiar with how little observing they have been able to get done, but that's also because of poor weather and strangely, the moon. Are the nights long enough out there to get some stuff done?
Clear Skies
Regards
Akarsh
Sounds like you're considering a trip to the west coast!
GSSP also had some bad luck with weather, but as far as the number of hours of observing, astronomical twilight ends at 10:45 PM and astronomical dawn begins at 3:30 AM. So, theoretically there are 4hr 45min of darkness. Probably 4 1/2 hrs is a more realistic figure. Yeah, not so great. A couple of weeks ago I started observing at 6:30 and by 11:30 had already observed 5 hrs!
Steve, to be fair, the only reason would be to come and observe with y'all again. If it's only 4hrs 45min of darkness, I'll need a lot more reason than just astronomy to come there. Let's see if I can put something together; probably will not work out :-/
Clear Skies
Regards
Akarsh
you ought to try and come and observe at my latitude of 51.5N and then you will understand that even getting 4.5 hours would be good. Never gets astronomical dark from May-early August :-)
Owen
Yeah I had that too when I lived in The Netherlands +52N). Now in Spain I get dark skies all year around.
Akarsh is also a bit spoiled at +30 latitude with the center of the Milky Way rising well above the muck in the summer. Of course, anyone from the southern hemisphere is probably snickering at that statement.
It all depends on what you're used to - I think 4.5 hours of darkness in early July is a real bargain coming from 45 degrees north.
I also feel like dark when I was in netherland.